Joe Wizan Movies

Norman Jewison's blackly satirical look at the American justice system has gained in stature as one of the more incisive social commentaries of its time. Al Pacino plays Arthur Kirkland, an incorruptible attorney who attempts to initiate reforms in the Maryland justice system. Kirkland is haunted by the fates of two past clients, one of whom committed suicide in jail; the other is still alive but is locked up on a trumped-up traffic violation. The ability of power and money to distort the pursuit of justice becomes all too clear as Kirkland finds out how deeply the rot has spread. He finally retaliates by representing a repulsive judge (John Forsythe) accused of rape. Pacino's and Forsythe's performances are intense and powerful. Many critics found the film biting and almost painful in its razor-sharp indictment of the justice system, while others declared the script too outrageous. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Morgan Freeman returns as forensic psychologist Dr. Alex Cross in this thriller based on the novel by James Patterson (whose work also formed the basis of the hit Kiss the Girls). Gary Soneji (Michael Wincott) is a brilliant but remorseless psychopath who has landed a teaching position at an exclusive private school in Washington, D.C. Using his extensive knowledge of kidnapping (he's taught a class on Charles Lindbergh), Soneji abducts one of his students - Megan (Mika Boorem), whose father Hank Rose (Michael Moriarty) is a United States senator. Ollie MacArthur (Dylan Baker), the detective investigating the case, has strong words for Jezzie Flannigan (Monica Potter), the Secret Service agent who mistakenly let Megan slip through her fingers. But when the kidnapper contacts Dr. Cross, the psychologist is brought in on the case, and Cross seeks out Flannigan, who he believes might have a valuable insight into the case. Soon, Cross and Flannigan come to the terrible realization that this crime only represents the tip of the iceberg for the ruthless Soneji. Along Came a Spider also features Penelope Ann Miller, Jay O. Sanders, and Kim Hawthorne. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Danny Huston's Becoming Colette purports to be an account of the early formative years of French author Gabrielle Colette (Mathilda May) and her evolution from naive country bumpkin to a Parisian socialite in a George Sand suit. The film turns up the heat with Colette as a teen with a crush on her father. This desire is then transferred to the suave and cosmopolitan Villars (Klaus Maria Brandauer) -- a fatherly twenty-five years her senior. The two start their hanky-panky on her father's country estate, resulting in a whirlwind courtship and marriage. Their honeymoon night is a succession of passionate unbuttonings. Colette writes in detail about it the next day in her diary. Villars then takes Colette to the Moulin Rouge to meet his mistress, the bisexual Polaire (Virginia Madsen). Polaire and Colette hit it off and soon are taking it off in a lesbian embrace. Meanwhile, Villars has taken to publishing Colette's diaries and is making money hand over fist. But finally Colette catches on after realizing that while she is toiling away at home cranking out Claudine books, Villars is busy taking her earnings and spending the cash on a succession of frilly mistresses. Making her stand in pants, she decides to abandon Villars and go out on her own. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Kid N' Play (Christopher Reid and Christopher Martin) star in this role-reversal comedy that plays like a badly done sitcom without the laughs. The switcheroo occurs when two inner-city high school students -- one a straight-A whiz-kid and the other an angry criminal type -- have to switch identities and are forced to live each other's lives. Christopher Reid is Duncan Pinderhughes, a student with perfect grades but who can't graduate high school unless he passes gym. Christopher Martin plays Blade Brown, whose probation officer gives him an ultimatum -- graduate high school or go to jail. Due to a mix-up in their high school records, Pinderhughes and Brown are forced to take over each other's lives. Brown ends up in a class for gifted students, and Pinderhughes finds himself skulking behind the school building to a shotgun shack that houses all the high school's troublemakers. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

One of the most famous real-life UFO abduction cases on record becomes this character-driven drama from sci-fi screenwriter Tracy Torme. D.B. Sweeney stars as Travis Walton, a forestry worker who disappears one night during an encounter with a flying saucer. Authorities treat with skepticism the outrageous story related by the only witnesses to the event, Travis' five co-workers, who include his best friend and future brother-in-law, Mike Rogers (Robert Patrick). A state lawman (James Garner) finds a tabloid newspaper in the crew's pickup truck and quickly ascertains that tensions had arisen between Walton and a surly fellow logger (Craig Sheffer), leading him to conclude that a murder cover-up is underway. However, all of the men pass lie detector tests and the case becomes stalled until the shocking last-minute reappearance of Travis, who tells a literally fantastic story involving his whereabouts for the past week. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Years before Kevin Costner danced with wolves, Robert Redford headed to the mountains to escape civilization in Sydney Pollack's wilderness western. Around 1850, ex-soldier Johnson (Redford) decides that he would rather live alone as a mountain man in Colorado than deal with society's constraints. After a series of setbacks, he meets grizzled mountain veteran Bear Claws (Will Geer), who teaches him how to survive. Jeremiah strives to live as peaceably as possible in the rugged environment, trading with the native Crow tribe, adopting a boy (Josh Albee) after his family is massacred, and even marrying the daughter (Delle Bolton) of a Flathead chief in order to avoid confrontation. He settles into a mountain home with his family, but the U.S. cavalry, complete with a puritanical Reverend, interrupt the idyll to compel Jeremiah to lead them over the mountains and through a Crow burial ground to rescue white settlers. After the Crow kill his family in retaliation, Jeremiah's frenzied moment of payback precipitates a long-running vendetta, turning him into a legendary Indian killer at the expense of his original ideals, on the way to a final moment of grace. Spectacularly shot on location in Utah, the film captures both the appeal and the challenge of the landscape that Jeremiah chooses over civilization. With an unglamorous performance by Redford and a story that questioned white colonialism while mythologizing the man of nature, Jeremiah Johnson appealed to its 1972 audience and became one of the biggest hits of the year. Wavering between heroicizing Jeremiah for surviving and damning him for killing, Jeremiah Johnson took its place among the Vietnam-era cycle of critical westerns, like Arthur Penn's Little Big Man (1970) and Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), that condemned civilization for corrupting the wilderness and preventing individuals from going pacifistically native. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

This thriller is adapted from the 1995 novel by James Patterson about a serial killer prowling a Southern university. Washington, D.C., forensic psychologist Dr. Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman) is also a best-selling author. After his niece Naomi (Gina Ravera) is reported missing, he heads his Porsche for Durham, North Carolina, where eight young women have been reported missing. Bodies are found by local policemen (Cary Elwes and Alex McArthur), along with the killer's signature, "Casanova." Casanova is a "collector" of strong-willed women who are forced to submit to his demands. Soon, local doctor Kate McTiernan (Ashley Judd) is abducted from her home and taken to a dungeon -- where other women are imprisoned in underground chambers. After McTiernan succeeds in escaping, she joins Cross and other detectives in the search for Casanova -- a trail that leads to Los Angeles, where similar crimes are being committed by someone known as "The Gentleman Caller." Are these two criminals in competition with each other or are they working together? ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Michael Ritchie, better known for his gentle satires of American social institutions, enters Don Siegel territory in the unusual crime thriller Prime Cut. Lee Marvin is surly collection agent Nick Devlin, who is hired by Chicago racketeer Jake (Eddie Egan) to collect an overdue payment from Kansas cattle baron Mary Ann (yes, Mary Ann!) (Gene Hackman). When Devlin travels west to get Jake's money from Mary Ann, he finds the cattle king mixed up in complex drug deals and pimping wild women -- two of which are Poppy and Violet (Sissy Spacek and Janit Baldwin -- both in their film debuts). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

A young wife and her husband witness the brutal barroom rape of a young woman and now must decide whether or not to testify against the culprits or remain quiet in this made-for-TV drama that exploits an actual Massachusetts case. Compounding her difficulties is the fact that one of the rapists is her brother-in-law. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This family drama centers on an Irish brood in which the father and his two sons work as prizefighters. Both the boys are quite talented, but each has chosen a dramatically different means of exploiting their talent. With help from his father, the youngest boy is working for the Olympics. The eldest has involved himself with corrupt promoters. This naturally creates considerable conflict within the family ranks. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this Disney comedy, two identical cars cause all sorts of mayhem for six people and lively dog. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Exorcist director William Friedkin made a return to the horror genre with this blend of straightforward suspense and Druid myth-inspired horror-fantasy. The idyllic lives of yuppie couple Phil and Kate (Dwier Brown and Carey Lowell) seem complete when they select the winsome young Camilla (Jenny Seagrove) as a live-in nanny for their newborn child, but the lovely young Camilla -- whose natural sexuality begins to work its spell on Phil -- is not what she appears to be. This becomes shockingly apparent to the audience early in the story when she is set upon by a trio of rape-minded thugs who meet with a particularly nasty fate in the woods, but it seems to take the parents much longer to come to the same conclusion. In fact, the woods are the key to the entire equation, as Camilla is revealed to be a powerful forest entity from Druid mythology who intends to sacrifice her infant charge to a hideous tree-god. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, The Preppie Murder begins on August 26, 1986. This was the day that 18-year-old Jennifer Levin (Lara-Flynn Boyle) was strangled to death in Central Park. The prime suspect, Jennifer's 19-year-old boyfriend Robert Chambers (William Baldwin), confesses to the crime. The well-to-do young man insists that the killing was accidental; he claims that it occurred during a "rough sex" session that Jennifer had inaugurated. The ensuing media frenzy forces the old "she asked for it" defense to rear its ugly head. The Preppie Murder's attempts at fairness caused a great deal of critical turmoil when the film first aired on September 24, 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide